republic. It was also nearly about this time that Madame de Stael published her Thoughts on Peace, addressed to Mr. Pitt and the French People, which the illustrious Fox quoted in the House of Commons in support of his arguments for peace, and to which Sir Francis d'Ivernois replied by his Thoughts on War.

It is possible that, born with a lively disposition, and anxiously wishing for the return of order and tranquillity, Madame de Stael frequently armed herself with all her eloquence to animate her friends, in those disastrous times, to put an end to troubles that were continually renewed. In 1795, Legendre, that Parisian butcher, who was the friend of Marat, Danton, and Robespierre, declaimed more than once against her as being at the head of the intrigues that had a tendency to moderation. She says somewhere in her work on literature: "If, to heighten her misfortune, it were in the midst of political dissentions that a female should acquire a remarkable celebrity, her influence would be supposed unbounded, though null in reality; she would be accused of the deeds of her friends; she would be hated for whatever is dear to her, and the defenceless objects would be attacked in preference to those who might yet be feared:" and it is her own experience which suggested these expressions. Madame de Stael has felt what she complains of; during the internal dissentions of France she has been crushed by all parties, astonished to find her an interested bystander during the conflict of their passions. Her having said, along with the Abbè Siéyès, that the constitution of 1795, "was not yet the good one," has been imputed to her as a crime.

While calumny was embittering her days, her feeling heart was doomed to a more severe misfortune. Mr. Necker having informed her that there was no hope of his wife's recovery from a long illness, which actually terminated her life shortly after, Madame de Stael eagerly hastened to her dying mother. She found her extremely weak. Madame Necker was fond of hearing music during her illness: every evening she sent for some musicians, in order that the impressions she received from harmonious sounds might keep her soul alive to those sublime thoughts from which alone death derives a character of melancholy and tranquillity.-Once, during the last days of her sufferings, the musicians having neglected coming, Mr. Necker requested his daughter to perform on the piano. After having played a few sonatas, she began to sing a song of Sacchini's composition, in his Oedipus at Colonna, the words of which recal the cares of Antigone.* Her father, on hearing this, shed a flood

Elle m'a prodigué sa tendresse et ses soins,

Son zèla dans mes maux m'a fait trouver des charmes.

of tears, and threw himself at the feet of his dying consort. His profound emotion caused Madame de Stael to give over singing. On the very last day of Madame Necker's life, wind instruments were still heard in a room close to her bed-chamber when she had already ceased to live. "To describe," says Madame de Stael," the melancholy contrast between the varied expressions of the musical sounds, and the uniform feeling of sadness with which death filled the heart, is impossible." Thomas, who has celebrated Madame Necker in his verses addressed to Susanna, has left an indirect eulogy of her in his Essay on Women. "Truly estimable," says this academician, "is the female who, though she has imbibed in the great world the charms of society, such as good taste, grace and wit, knows how to preserve her heart and her understanding from that unfeeling vanity and that false sensibility, the offspring of the higher circles; who, reluctantly obliged to submit to social forms and usages, never loses sight of nature, and by whom nature is yet regretted; who, forced by her rank to expense and luxury, prefers at least useful expenses, and enables industrious poverty to share in her wealth; who, while she cultivates literature and philosophy, loves these pursuits for their own sake and not for a vain reputation; she in fine who, in the midst of levity, does not lose her natural character; who, in the bustle of the world, retains a firm mind; who owns her friend in the midst of those by whom he is slandered; who boldly undertakes his defence, though he is never to know it; and who, at home and abroad, reserves her esteem for virtue, her contempt for vice, and her heart for friendship." In order to assuage her grief for the loss of a parent, in every respect entitled to the most poignant regret, and to repel the malicious attacks to which she was exposed for opinions which were not hers, Madame de Stael composed at Lausanne the first part of a philosophical essay on the influence of the passions upon the happiness of individuals and nations, which she published at Paris in 1796, and of which she printed the second part in 1797. The merit of this work has been acknowledged alike in France, in England, and in Germany. It abounds in interesting remarks, and views many objects in a novel and striking manner. Its style is elegant throughout, and but very rarely obscure. It was translated into English in 1798,

Madame de Stael was with her father at Copet when the French troops entered Switzerland. By one of the decrees passed during the reign of terror, Mr. Necker, although an alien, had been placed on the list of emigrants, and any one, whose name was on that fatal list, was to be condemned to death if found on a territory occupied by the French armies. But the French generals showed him the most respectful regard, and the Directory afterwards erased his name from the list.

This moderation induced Madame de Stael to repair once more to her husband in France. But at the end of a few months she grew tired of the various persecutions to which she was unceasingly exposed, and hastened back to her father, upbraiding herself for being unable to live like him in solitude, and to exist without that competition of thoughts and glory which doubles our existence and our powers.

In 1798, the declining health of Baron de Stael again called Madame de Stael to Paris, where he expired in her arins. About this time she published a work, On the influence of Revolutions upon Literature, of which I have not been able to procure a copy; nor have I seen a dramatic piece of her composition, called The Secret Sentiment. Madame de Stael, after the death of her husband, spent the greatest part of her time with her father at Copet and at Lausanne.

In 1800, when Bonaparte passed through Geneva, he had the curiosity to visit Mr. Necker at Copet, where Madame de Stael happened to be with her father. The interview was not long, but it has been reported that Madame de Stael requested a private audience, during which she spoke to the First Consul of the powerful means which his situation afforded him to provide for the happiness of France, and made an eloquent display of some plans of her own, which she thought particularly calculated to accomplish this object. Bonaparte appeared to give her an attentive hearing but when she ceased to speak, he coldly asked, "Who educates your children, Madame ?"

It was chiefly in Switzerland that Madame de Stael wrote the novel called Delphine, the first edition of which was printed at Geneva in 1802. The moral object of this novel has been equally mistaken in France, England, and Germany, and yet it has been read every where with the same eagerness. It has had four or five editions in France, and has been translated in English and German, while the Anti-Delphine of a very sensible English young lady, which has drawn sweet tears from the eyes of tender females, has met with few readers in England, where Madame de Stael's novel has been loudly condemned.

The severity of the criticisms which from every corner of Europe were directed against a work written with a captivating energy of style, drew from the author an ingenious defence. "In most novels, which have a moral object," says Madame de Stael, "personages that are perfect are contrasted with others who are completely odious. Such writings, I think, leave no impression on the only class of readers that are capable of amendment, namely, those who are both weak and honest. Utility consists in inspiring the dread of faults committed by beings that are naturally virtuous, delicate, and feeling; to these alone good advice

may be serviceable; they alone may be deterred by a fatal example. The vicious are, by their nature, so different from us, that whatever we may write effects no conviction in their minds: their language, sentiments, hopes, and fears are so different; and nothing can have any effect upon them except the events of their own life. I need not observe, I hope, that a dramatic writer does not approve of the characters he delineates, and that, whether he paints a train of errors and their fatal consequences, or a series of good actions and their rewards, he is still a severe moralist. I am almost ashamed to be obliged to repeat notions which are every where so fully acknowledged that they are deemed superfluous."

One day Mr. Necker, in a conversation with his daughter, respecting the novel of Delphine, which had been so much criticised, maintained, that domestic affections alone were capable of affording scenes as tragical as the passion of love; and to prove his assertion, he composed a tale, entitled, The fatal Consequences of a single Error, which Madame de Stael has inserted in the manuscripts of her father, published at Geneva in 1804.

In the mean time Madame de Stael could not habituate herself to live in a country which is not her native one, and where sciences are much more cultivated than literature. Her father perceived her struggles between her predilection for the brilliant societies of Paris and the sorrow she felt at the idea of leaving him. Though, in his character of a wise parent, he ought to have condemned, in a widow, the mother of three children, this fatal propensity for seeking happiness only in the crowded assemblies of the great world, whose votaries alike extol the sallies of false wit and the effusions of genius, to be applauded in their turn. Mr. Necker, who himself was not yet cured of the same disease, encouraged her partiality for France. Fond of the remembrance which he had left behind in that country, he endeavoured with all his might to preserve its affection for his family. As Madame de Stael was perhaps actuated by the secret desire of shining at the court of the First Consul, or at least of collecting in the metropolis of the French republic the flattering meed of praise due to her last literary successes, she easily yielded to the persuasions of her father, and re-appeared at Paris in 1803. But her residence in that city was not of long duration. Whether the watch-. ful activity of her superior genius was still feared, or that she had ventured too sarcastic observations upon the events of the day, or whether the First Consul had so little generosity as to be revenged on the daughter for a work published against the consular government by the father, Bonaparte soon pronounced against her a sentence of banishment to the distance of forty leagues from Paris; and it has been reported that Madame de Stael had

the noble firmness to say to him: "You are giving me a cruel celebrity; I shall occupy a line in your history."

Madame de Stael at first retired to Auxerre; but not meeting with suitable society, she thought she might settle at Rouen; and as this city is only thirty-two leagues from Paris, she even fancied she might draw a little nearer to the metropolis, and took a house in the valley of Montmorency. But the French government ordered her to withdraw within the limits assigned in the sentence of her exile; she then set out for Francfort, attended by her eldest daughter, and accompanied by the ex-tribune Benjamin Constant, her faithful protector. From Francfort Madame de Stael repaired, in the midst of a severe winter, to the dominions of the king of Prussia, where she formed plans destined to make the French acquainted with German literature. In the spring of the year 1804, she felt herself happy at Berlin, the society of which city pleased her much; when, on the morning of the 18th of April, a friend brought her letters which informed her of her father's illness. She immediately set off, and until she reached Weimar, the idea that she might be deceived that her father might be no more, had never entered her mind. Mr. Necker had, however, died at Geneva on the 9th of April, 1804, after a short but painful illness. During his fever he expressed frequent apprehensions that his last work might prove fatal to his daughter, and in his delirium he often blessed her and her three children.

This unexpected blow changed the destiny of Madame de Stael. After her tears had flown in abundance upon the grave of a father whom she had affectionately loved, she sought for some alleviation to her grief in selecting the most interesting fragments among Mr. Necker's papers, and published them at Geneva in 1804, together with a short account of the character and private life of her father, under the title of Manuscripts of Mr. Necker, published by his Daughter. She took care to insert in them a compliment paid to the character of Bonaparte in these words: "The First Consul is eminently distinguished by his firm and decisive character; it is a splendid will which seizes every thing, regulates every thing, fixes every thing, and which always moves and stops at the proper time. This faculty, which I describe after a great model, is the first quality for the chief ruler of a great empire. In the end, it is considered as a law of nature, and all opposition vanishes." This mean flattery on the part of a man who had ruined France, to introduce republican forms, produced no alteration in the disposition of the First Consul towards Madame de Stael. The sentence of her banishment was not revoked, and the novel of Corinna, which appeared soon after